Joseph Lister (April 5, 1827-February 10, 1912) was a prominent physician and medical pioneer who promoted the idea of sterile surgery while working at the Glasgow Infirmary. Infection was the principal cause of death after surgery, and he had decided to try the use of chemical agents to prevent this. Carbolic acid (phenol) had been in use as a means of deodorising sewage, so Lister tested the results of spraying instruments, the surgical incisions, and dressings with a solution of carbolic acid. This greatly reduced the death rate from post-operative infections. He first published a series of articles on the
Antiseptic Principle of the Practice of Surgery
describing this procedure on March 16, 1867 in the journal The Lancet.

Continual exposure to phenol could be quite unpleasant, however, and as the germ theory of disease became more widely accepted, it was realised that infection could be better avoided by preventing bacteria from getting into wounds in the first place: the rise of sterile surgery. Some consider Lister the father of modern antisepsis.